Clivedurdle

My evidence is Plato - that heaven is more real and perfect than this shadowy cave of Earth. All I have done is noted that a heavenly sacrifice is more logical from this mind set.

Did you not see the explicit reference to this in Hebrews?

Surely it is for you to show why my use of Ocham in this case is incorrect, and your more complex model of an earthly sacrifice is the correct one.

jakejonesiv

Hi GakuseiDon,

Considering other epistles, do you consider 2 Peter 1:16 to be evidence of Jesus' historicity? It sure beats anything in the "genuine" Pauline Epistles for clarity.

What do you think of 1 John chapter 1?

Do you think Paul could have been purposefully vaugue?

Jake Jones IV

Gregg

Oh, for the love of ... of COURSE we have many examples in the first few centuries! Nobody is "ignoring" this, and you know it! Yet you claim to know Doherty's arguments better than many of his supporters!

You know that those "many other such examples in the first few centuries" are all from the second century onward, AFTER Mark and some of the other gospels were written. Naturally we start seeing these examples then. We do not see them anywhere in first century Christian correspondence.

The earliest "Christian" documents we have are the epistles. They are silent on the details of the life of any earthly Jesus. All we get is very general stuff ... Jesus was "delivered up (at night)" he "broke bread" and established a sacred meal, he was crucified, buried, he rose up. The reference to Pilate is easily a later interpolation. We have language throughout these epistles that echoes Platonism. We have Paul declaring his knowledge of Jesus' crucifixion comes direct from God through scripture and personal revelation, not bothering to mention that, oh, there were also some guys in Jerusalem who saw the whole thing. Etc., etc.

Then, from out of left field, some 50 or 60 years later, comes this supposed "biography" of Jesus. Nowhere have we read of this dramatic story or this fascinating cast of characters before. You know, even if you strip the gospel story down to its bare bones, you'd think it was still pretty dramatic for those who actually lived it. The brief and tragic earthly career of the One through whom all things were made, at the end of which he reconciled the universe to God through himself. I mean, even if the disciples were initially shocked and saddened by their beloved teacher's untimely and scandalous end, once they were convinced of who he really was and what he'd really just done, how could they not spend every spare moment recalling the details of his life, remembering the hints he gave about his true nature and purpose, discussing his wise sayings, and for heaven's sake, writing a few things down?

But instead we get nothing, then we get Mark. In Paul's time there were already churches all over the Empire, by Mark's time there were undoubtedly many more, yet no one until Mark has written a word (except about the last supper, crucifixion, and resurrection, and even with these, we do not get any real details like who, what, where, when) about the Savior's earthly career. No signs of a simple story evolving into something complex and epic through countless retellings, embellishments, and exaggerations. How, if there was this continuous, vast, animated dialogue about Jesus' earthly life and teachings going on in Christian churches and households all over the Empire for five decades or more, did none of it get into Christian correspondence? Why do we only start seeing it after Mark's gospel comes on the scene?

G'Don, you are correct, evidence is central to any argument, and imagination does not count for anything. You claim Doherty's arguments lack evidence. I disagree. What Doherty presents is a powerful circumstantial evidence case. In a circumstantial case, you do not have a "smoking gun" or material evidence directly linking the culprit to the crime, but you can nevertheless convict someone on circumstantial evidence alone (I would not say Doherty has only circumstantial evidence, though). However, for a good lawyer to convict on circumstantial evidence, he must get the jury to--perhaps not "use their imaginations" is the best way to put it, because that could be taken as saying that as long as you can imagine so-and-so did the crime, then he did it -- he must get the jury to hold the various pieces of circumstantial evidence up in their minds at the same time, and see how they fit together to form a powerful case. This, I think, is why people might say "imagination" is needed to understand the mythicist case, although that really isn't the best word choice.

As for your talk of surrounding context and examples in similar literature, again, I find it bizarre that you claim to have read and understand Doherty's arguments if you think he doesn't think surrounding context and examples in similar literature are important. He's not the one who ignores how much of Paul's language echoes Platonic ideas. He's not the one who picks the few passages that seem to refer to an "earthly" Jesus out of Paul and Hebrews, and ignores the silences everywhere else, not to mention explicit statements in Hebrews that the Christ's blood offering would be in vain had it taken place on Earth.

GakuseiDon

I would be interested in Gregg's take on both of those items.

Gregg, are they evidence for historicity? Note that there doesn't appear to be the details in 2 Peter or 1 John like Pilate, Calvary, etc, that you expect would be in Paul.

Not really, no.

GakuseiDon

The question is, why do we NOT see Gospel details in those letters? And if there is a reason, why can't the same reasons apply to Paul?

These are the examples I gave Doherty:

* Clement of Alexandria (182-202 CE): "Exhortation to the Heathen" (Use of 'Jesus' and 'Christ', but no historical details)
* Ignatius (108 CE): "Philadelphians", "Polycarp" (Use of 'Jesus' and 'Christ', but no historical details)
* Tertullian (200 CE): "Ad nationes" (No reference to the names 'Jesus' or 'Christ' at all)
* Tertullian (200 CE): "Against Hermogenes" (No historical details, 3 mentions of 'Christ', none for Jesus)
* Attributed to 'Justin Martyr' (late 2nd C or 3rd C): Horatory to the Greeks (No historical details, uses 'Logos' and 'Word' throughout, with a final association to a 'Jesus Christ' in the concluding paragraph)
* Commodianus (240 CE): “Instructions of Commodianus” (No historical details) [19]

From the large fragments of Melito's "Apology" (160-177) that remain, the "Apology" possibly falls into this category as well.

Can you give me the reason why these authors "are silent on the details of the life of an earthly Jesus"? Should we expect them to have written such details?

What's wrong with the general stuff??? How can you say they are silent on an earthly Jesus, and then ignore that Paul and Hebrews have Jesus the descendent of a (supposedly) historical person, of a particular (supposedly) historical tribe, born of a woman, broke bread, was crucified, died and buried, and maintain that Paul isn't talking about an earthly Jesus?

Assuming that Paul's letters haven't been interpolated in key points, the letters that we do have give a prima facie case that Paul was talking about a historical person, someone who appeared at some time after Moses, was associated with Jerusalem, and seems to have died within Paul's lifetime (depending on the resurrection and appearances to the apostles being within a short time of one another). Throw in some teachings, and there are a lot of parallels between the Gospels and the details in Paul. But some mythicists say, on the one hand, that we aren't allowed to read the Gospels into Paul, and on the other, that Paul was unaware of Gospel-like materials.

Doherty's case is that there are non-historical explanations for the apparent historical passages. And that's fine. But Gregg, all I see from Doherty supporters here (including you, I'm afraid) is rhetorical question after rhetorical question. When are we going to start investigating the evidence? Please.

No, Paul doesn't declare that his knowledge of Jesus's crucifixion comes direct from God. Reference please? Paul persecuted the church before he converted. It's reasonable to assume that he knew some things about Jesus beforehand.

Yes, you may be right.

Yes, you may be 100% correct.

Excellent! Finally, some investigation is possible...

I agree, and I have no problem with circumstantial evidence, nor with the use of speculation or imagination (and I agree it is a bad word choice). The problem I have is when counter-evidence is dismissed as "failure of imagination". If there is evidence on one side, and no evidence on the other side, then "imagination" becomes special pleading when judging the merits of a case.

Good! That sounds like a challenge. Let's start with Doherty's strongest piece of evidence, and take it from there. Time for investigation! If you can post what you regard as Doherty's strongest piece of evidence here, I'll start a new thread so you and I can investigate together.

Gamera

I think you've change the terms of the debate in a way that makes historcity virtually impossible to prove.

The issue is was there a man called Jesus who engaged in some kind of religious mission at the time the texts indicate, taught a new doctrine about universal love in distinction to the Law, and ran afoul of authorities and was killed in some local jurisdictional dispute.

You don't have to accept the resurrection or the miracles to call that figure an historical Jesus. I think there is ample evidence for such a person.

If your standard is, unless there is an irrefutable text that accurately relates a person's biography, that person isn't historical, I think you've just wiped out the historicity of everybody on this planet.

All texts have agendas. Texts attesting to Augustus and Socrates had theirs, which lead to authorial decisions (which you call propaganda -- as good a word as any) that have nothing to do with events. What author's include and excluse is itself a fictionalizing devise in the pursuit of an agenda.

And so it is with Jesus and the texts the arose around him.

No difference. You just don't like the kinds of stories that arose around the historical Jesus. But are they really more irrational than the miraculous birth myths that arose around Alexander or -- it's staring you in the face -- Augustus' claim to BE a god!

spin

Jason of course is no problem for Gamera. The argonauts were as real as whoever else was written about. Giton was a Roman in love with Encolpius as is written in the Satyricon. There mere fact that texts talk about people reifies these people.


spin

Gregg

Once again, Gamera, you're simply ignoring all the other evidence for Jesus being something else entirely. Do I have to go over it all again? Paul and the other epistle writers, the earliest Christian writers we have, never mentioning any gospel details, but speaking of Jesus in language similar to Greek Platonist writings about the Logos and the layered heavens. Paul stating he received his good news of Christ crucified from "no man," but directly from God via scripture and revelation. The writer of Hebrews declaring that had Jesus' blood offering taken place on Earth, it would have been in vain. The absence of any evidence of a Christian dialogue about the life of an earthly Jesus, any gradual accumulation of myth and legend, before Mark springs full blown out of nowhere, the entire ministry of Christ structured on the Torah, practically every detail of the crucifixion taken directly from the Jewish scriptures.

I mean, who is using G'Don's dirty word, "imagination," here? It's the historicists who dream up excuses for not just Paul, but the entire corpus of NT epistle writers never mentioning Pilate (except that one lonely verse, likely an interpolation), or any other gospel characters, except, as far as I can recall, Peter (ed. also James) (is there any mention of John the Baptist in the NT epistles?), never giving us any earthly details about the earthly career of their god, the creative power of the universe who just recently reconciled that creation to the Father on the hill of Calvary. It's the historicists who dream up this animated but entirely verbal dialogue among Christians that never makes it into any Christian document prior to the second century, until we know Mark and some other gospels have come on the scene, and THEN a couple decades later Christians are talking about this earthly Jesus and haven't stopped to this day! Who is it, exactly, who is imagining things for which we have no evidence?

Now, what we DO have evidence for is that in many cultures ... Japan, Egypt, Aztec, Greek, Roman, etc. ... big, important people who fought wars, conquered territory, ran whole countries ... regularly got deified and/or given miraculous origins. No surprise there, especially since most of these cultures were polythiestic and the Emperor became just another god in a large pantheon, not THE god. What we don't have evidence for is people with Jewish leanings turning any human being, not even a Moses or David, into a god. What we do have evidence for is that Jews (and the Greek Platonists, for that matter) regarded the deification and worship of a human being, the identification of a man of flesh and blood with the one holy god, blasphemous. So who is it, really, who is using their imagination here? A man like Paul, who declares himself a good Jew, a Pharisee, becomes convinced that a humble rabbi he never met who was crucified just like any other rebel was really, in essence, God in the flesh, who came from the Godhead, was born, lived and died as a human being, and ascended back into the Godhead.

That is what is a stretch. That is what takes "imagination" to envision. It is not nearly such a stretch to see a Hellenized Jew like Paul, under the influence of Greek Platonist philosophy and mystical Judaism, discovering the mystery of the Christ hidden in the Jewish scriptures. And, without explicitly mentioning Platonist philosophy, this is what Paul himself tells us happened: "The mystery hidden for ages and generations which is now made manifest to his saints. Through them God chose to make known among the gentiles the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory."

Just read the plain words of Paul. No imagination required. He is trying to tell you where he got his gospel. From "no man." From scripture. From divine revelation. No ministry of Jesus on earth, no crucifixion on a hill outside Jerusalem, no disciples going around telling people what they'd witnessed. The heavenly sacrifice of the Christ is revealed in the holy scriptures for those given eyes to see.

Gregg

G'Don, for some reason I'm not able to copy and paste right now, and I don't want to mess with coding for quotes (it's early and I'm about to get back in bed for a while), but I wanted to address a couple things real quick:

On the examples you gave Doherty, Doherty himself uses examples of later Christian documents that do not mention historical details to bolster his case. Again, I don't understand how you can say you've thoroughly read and understood Doherty's arguments if you don't know this.

Timelines matter. That we have no one mentioning details of Jesus' earthly ministry immediately following his crucifixion, but instead immediately applying a full-blown Christology to him, with Paul boldly declaring he received his gospel from "no man," with Paul, who yearned to feel Christ's suffering and know the power of his resurrection, going to Jerusalem and saying nothing of how he felt being in the very city where his Lord suffered, died, and rose again, is quite odd, to say the least.

After Mark, we gradually start seeing examples of Christians mentioning details of Jesus' earthly life in their writings. Why don't we see this in all the writings? As you should know if you're familiar with Doherty's case, the mythicist explanation is that not all Christians, even by the end of the 2nd century, subscribed to historicism. Many of them still held to the old Platonist view. Even after the historicity of the gospels became universally accepted, there were those who said the "earthly" Jesus was not really flesh and blood and did not really suffer. (Even the author of the gospel of John seems to have a problem with the synoptics' rather earthy Jesus.) Also, I haven't read the examples you give, but I can certainly see that there might be writings or correspondence in the second century, even among historicists, where it really is not necessary to mention any gospel details. I do not believe this is the case with the epistles, and especially the writings of Paul. Paul was writing at a much earlier time, the fragile beginnings of a new faith, and he was dealing with issues where references to Jesus' earthly ministry were practically demanded, yet he absolutely refuses to go there. Other Christians preaching a Christ who was not crucified? Come on, G'Don! How can Paul return time and time again to scripture alone as evidence of Christ's crucifixion, making no mention of where it took place or the fact that there were eyewitnesses? Why do people who presumably heard the same gospel as everyone else turn around and start denying the central tenet of the faith? And this is just one example of a situation that practically screams for Paul to say something about Jesus' earthly career.

As for "What's wrong with general stuff" see above.

As for Paul receiving his gospel directly from God, you are simply denying what Paul says quite explicitly. That he persecuted Christians before becoming one himself does not tell us anything about whether Jesus is historical or not. No one is saying that Paul was not aware of Christians or what they claimed to believe. But it was not until he received his personal revelation ... until his eyes were opened to the mystery of the Christ concealed within the holy scriptures ... that he became an apostle of Christ himself. And nowhere does he say that the Christians he persecuted, or the other apostles, became Christians after witnessing the career of an actual man. Rather, they came by their belief the same way he did ... through scripture and divine revelation.

Edited to add:

I kind of wonder exactly how Paul was supposed to have persecuted Christians. What gave him the authority to do so, and how did one man persecute so many others without help? I don't think he could have done it alone, he would have had to stir people up, maybe bring some goons with him. Moving from town to town with an entourage would cost money, was he a man of means? Sometimes I wonder if that stuff was added later. On the other hand, I'm not looking at it right now but from what I recall it doesn't strike me as an interpolation.

GakuseiDon

Because Doherty ignores those examples that I brought up. These are people who appear to have believed in a HJ, but have all but ignored those historical details that you say should be in Paul.

I would LOVE to see Doherty try to make a case in peer-reviewed publication that Tatian, for example, didn't believe in a HJ. I think he would be torn apart personally.

The gospel that Paul received "from no man" is that Christ's death was relevent to Gentiles. This is consistent with everything else in Paul -- his battle with James, and his battle with Judaizers.

But why would people who knew about the Gospels NOT mention any of those details? That is the problem that Doherty has ignored.

Yes, we can see evidence for this in the anti-heresy writers. What we don't see is evidence for people who believed that events like crucifixion happened in a "spiritual realm".

C'mon. This is just special pleading. "X didn't do it, but Paul should have". How do you decide this, other than special pleading?

Please make a case from this. At the least, provide some evidence for this position. Again, this is just special pleading. If I wanted to claim that "no, Paul had no reason to go there", how would we decide which one to take?

You still haven't given me a reference for this claim. As I said, if Paul were persecuting the early Christian church, then he would have already known something about Jesus and the crucifixion. It isn't until his conversion experience that he is convinced that the early Christians were correct.

More rhetorical questions. Make a case.

Paul undoubtedly is talking about a fleshly, earthly Jesus. That he is talking about a Gospel Jesus is in doubt, but not the fact that he is talking about an "earthly Jesus". I suggest you have "earthly Jesus" and "Gospel Jesus" confused.

What do you mean? I agree that Paul got his gospel directly from God. Paul's "good news" is that Jesus came for the Gentiles.

I agree, but it surely says something about Paul knowing something about Christianity before he had his revelation.

Again, reference please.